Can't See the Forest for the Trees. Or Mrs. Wallis Simpson and the Dubai Ports Deal

I realize they don't teach history in schools these days. So I may have to rely on older readers to answer this question: What happened 70 years ago on March 7, 1936?

It was a late winter morning, when Adolf Hitler ordered 14,500 German troops to re-enter the Rhineland, a portion of Germany, but a move that was forbidden under the Versailles Treaty that ended World War I and the later Locarno Pact. After Hitler ordered German rearmament, invasion of the Rhineland was the second of many illegal moves that led to the beginning of World War II. And it could have been easily stopped by the French and the British who possessed the nearby overwhelming forces necessary to counter it.

But there were few voices calling on either France or Great Britain to live up to their obligations under the Versailles Treaty and the Locarno Pact which guaranteed the borders of Europe.

No one wanted war, even a small one, and besides attention of the Great Powers, particularly Great Britain was elsewhere.

The Illustrated London News offers a timeline of distraction. Six weeks before Hitler invaded the Rhineland King George V had died. The ascension of Edward VIII initiated a constitutional crisis when he demanded to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson (can't have any foreign influence in high places now can we?) Behind the scenes, Britain's top policymakers were consumed by the crisis which led to Edward VIII's abdication on December 10, 1936.

The rest of the world was preoccupied as well with Italians having invaded Ethiopia the previous October and Spain tottering on the brink of civil war. The United States was happy to indulge our penchant for isolationism (can't have any foreign entanglements you know) and confident that talk, talk and more talk at the failing League of Nations could address the issue of Hitler's violations.

Besides, most people thought the Versailles Treaty had been unfair to Germany. And on the day Hitler invaded he promised the Reichstag: "We have no territorial demands to make in Europe!...Germany will never break the peace" and "we pledge that now, more than ever, we shall strive for an understanding between European peoples.

Once again, lies, talk and indifference carried the day.

And of course this story cannot be complete without a cartoon. Months later, in July, 1936 famous cartoonist David Low offered a prophetic look at where this early expression of appeasement would lead:


David Low (bio here), Evening Standard (UK) July 8, 1936. On the backs of the spineless politicians reads "Rearmament...Rhineland...Danzing" and ultimately "Boss of the Universe."


Histories Lesson: Don't Get Lost in the Fog

Jump forward to today.

One week we had Dick Cheney's shooting accident on the news 24/7. Now, going on for the second week, the story of the leases of a handful of port terminals at even fewer ports being sold by a British company to one controlled by the United Arab Emirates, a strategic ally in the war on terror.

And what are we not talking about? The real threat brought into clear focus by the Cartoon War. And as Barry Rubin explains in a brilliant column "Appeasement Redux" we may find once again that we are only too eager to blame ourselves for precipitating another crisis with such convenient excuses like our support for Israel (the Jews again... and foreign entanglements to boot).

The real danger with the Dubai ports hysteria is that we may lose sight of the larger war while we indulge our prejudices and engage in political infighting. We may hand our political opponents in the United States a tool with which to beat us in the fall elections. You know they will wave the white flag of surrender in the war faster than you can say "Patriot Act."

And while we continue with the passions of the moment, the enemies of freedom continue to execute their carefully laid plans. It will only be with unity of purpose, and strong, confident international leadership that we may yet forestall the calamity of another failure to act in time.

And that unity of purpose must begin here at home. The 2006 elections will be a key moment in deciding the course and confidence of U.S. leadership in a world where confident, strong leadership are all too lacking. Now is the time to focus on the larger picture, the forest and not the trees and unite to win both the political battle here at home and the wider war.